THE TROUBLE WITH HANGOVERS
by Ballyuk
Summary: Ever wondered what happened with those little loose ends from 10x15 (Fortune)?


**Author's Note: I do not own the characters.**

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**THE TROUBLE WITH HANGOVERS.**

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It had been bedlam. There was no other word for it.

The last of the Fortune Casino's patrons had fled the scene in the aftermath of the battle between a group of gun-toting heavies and the Queen/Sullivan Dream Team. Tables lay toppled over, glasses and gaming chips were strewn about the floor, while the casino's owner Amos Fortune and his henchmen were laid out on the ground either seeing stars or completely out of it having taken an absolute beating.

Lois, in full showgirl regalia, continued to admire the engagement ring she'd fought to win back - waves of relief washing over her now she was back in possession of the symbolic bond she felt naked without, and which she had drunkenly and foolishly been naive enough to bet against the house in the first place. Chloe in her dark coat glanced around the floor taking in the scene of chaos, keeping one eye on the heavy in front of them buried beneath the huge cast iron chandelier that had crashed on top of him during the fight. He would be waking up to one hell of a headache later.

Lois smiled brightly if somewhat guiltily as she spotted Clark entering the room with Emil in tow. She quickly slipped the ring on her finger, willing the heat on her cheeks to slip away. She didn't want to have to tell him about her foolishness, and she _really_ didn't want to leave him with the impression that she wasn't 100% committed to their future together.

"Lois!" was all he could say as he clapped eyes on her. The last time he remembered seeing her was back at the house before all the fun began, and this was maybe the last place he expected to find her. She certainly hadn't been dressed the way she was right now. Just as with Lois moments earlier, a wave of relief washed over him as he realised that Chloe was right - Lois' cryptic text message to him was not because she had got cold feet. Evidently something else had happened, just like with himself and Chloe as well as Tess and Emil. It remained to be established what that something else was. Also on his mind was the fear that he and Chloe really had tied the knot, but right now his focus turned back to Lois' showgirl attire.

He had to wonder just how she so frequently managed to end up in all manner of outlandish outfits. Later on, he would remember this train of thought and make a mental checklist. The red PVC catsuit when she was investigating the underground fighting ring. The Stars 'N' Stripes number when she posed as a stripper to investigate a murder at the Windgate. The tight, _tight_, black pleather Stiletto outfit with mask and cape when she'd created her own superhero in an ill-advised attempt to draw out the Red-Blue Blur. The French maid's outfit in her closet, the provenance of which he still knew nothing about but would certainly not mind seeing her in. The straight-out-of-left-field Stormtrooper costume she'd been forced to don at the comic convention. The Amazonian goddess outfit at the same convention, which was also the first time he'd gotten really jealous of all the male attention she was getting having seen the leering and heard all the comments. The showgirl with the bunny ears when investigating the return of Ray Sacks, the corrupt former DA. The dominatrix from Club Desaad when she was investigating Gordon Godfrey and his anti-vigilante tirades. Clark had even seen a photo of the fancy dress charity ball held by Lex a few years ago where Lois - dressed as a fair maiden - had accompanied Oliver. It was an exhaustive list, and those were just the ones he knew about. Whatever the occasion, Lois had a transformation ready.

When collecting his thoughts later on, he would realise that she'd somehow managed to look cute and/or sexy in all of them, even if at the time he did not consider her to be cute _or_ sexy. Over time, he'd noticed that she could sell her mood with her eyes, and they sparkled when she was having fun or when she was trying to wind him up. Sometimes those were one and the same. He'd taken to reading her eyes to gauge how and if he should react, and tailored his responses accordingly. He'd become so good at it that he could go toe to toe with Lois when it came to banter. Observing her now, it was apparent to him that Lois was ill at ease. She was nervously rubbing her palms on her short skirt and found it difficult to maintain eye contact. Clark guessed that just like the others, Lois would be drawing a blank as to what exactly happened last night, and she didn't like knowing she was not in control of the situation.

Then his eyes drifted left towards the identically-clad tall, chiselled blonde who was also Lois' ex. Clark and Emil couldn't help but stare at Oliver in his get-up. The eyes caked in make-up. The cheeks plied thick with rouge. The shiny lip gloss. The fake diamond-encrusted choker. The satin gloves. The glitzy showgirl skirt. The high heel clutched in one hand. Certainly not what one would expect when laying eyes on the blonde billionaire. Despite this, Oliver looked much more at ease than Lois. Maybe the Green Archer also had a secret fetish for showy women's clothing - middle name Drag.

"Clark," said Oliver, as simply and nonchalantly as he might when dressed normally. Silence passed between the two men - an unspoken agreement never to speak of this again.

"It looks like I'm not the only one whose brain went AWOL last night," Emil commented with characteristic understatement.

For his part, Oliver was wondering why Emil was looking bruised and bloodied while kitted out as Elvis. In all the years he'd gotten to know and trust Emil, he'd never seen him relax. Emil was always ultra-focussed and ultra-professional in everything he did. _Someone must have a recollection of what we got up to._ "Whoa, what happened to you?"

"It's a long story," Emil sighed as he gingerly touched his bloodied lip. "Although I'm not entirely sure what that story is right now. I'm just glad I am no longer an unwilling participant of this little re-enactment of Scorsese's 1990s phase."

Oliver frowned. _I guess we can count out the good doctor._

"Elvis? Seriously? Never thought I would see the day," said Lois. Emil had always been so straight-laced and serious that she never would have imagined him to be a hound dog. Maybe he liked to work hard _and_ play hard but never let on.

"Like I said, a long story. If you all don't mind, I'd really like to get outta here, get cleaned up and get into something a little less Las Vegas and a lot more Armani," Emil replied.

"Good idea. We'd better high-tail it before the cops get here," suggested Chloe. "I don't think any of us is in the right frame of mind to answer their questions right now."

"I tell you what. Why don't we all go home and get some rest for a few hours before meeting up at Watchtower later on. Maybe we'll get some answers that way," added Oliver.

"Sounds good to me," said Lois.

Hopefully the step back to normality might also re-ignite their synapses and return those lost hours of memory. Lois and Oliver went backstage to retrieve and change back into their regular clothes before coming back out, and then Clark and Lois whooshed their way back to the farm.

"Come on, sweetcheeks," said Chloe to Oliver, leading him by the arm as Emil limped along behind them. Grinning, Chloe slipped a twenty into the waistband of Oliver's pants and patted his ass on their way out of the door for good measure. Staying silent as they walked the short distance to LuthorCorp, she had her own reasons for wanting to visit the farm later before everybody got together at Watchtower as agreed.

* * *

The second they reached the sanctity of the farmhouse, Lois tottered out of Clark's grasp as she reached to open the kitchen door. Super-speeding and a delicate stomach were not easy bedfellows and the pounding headache had yet to subside. This wasn't helped by her having to work overtime to hide her shame for being so reckless with the ring. She knew he would be hurt if he ever got the idea that she was having second thoughts, and she'd have to pull double-duty to convince him that she really was in it for the long haul. He on the other hand had been all in from the get-go. With careful steps, she allowed herself to get under the shade and away from the glaring sun outside, grateful for the brief respite from the drumming beneath her cranium and the fire behind her eyeballs. She needed time to compose her thoughts, and a decent hangover cure would be a start.

What she saw, however, caused her to blink more than a few times in disbelief. The house looked like a tornado had ripped through it. The couch lay overturned in the corner, the other furniture items were strewn everywhere, the piano had migrated from the living room over to the kitchen island, the photos that had remained hanging on the walls were all askew, and champagne bottles littered the coffee table. Oh, and there was a giant LuthorCorp sign sitting in all its cold steel glory right there in full view. You couldn't miss it.

"Smallville, either I'm starting to hallucinate or you had a real rager without me back at the farm."

Clark walked over to the card on the table beside the champagne bottles and handed it to Lois, who read it.

"_'__Congrats Clark, you deserve a real party. Hugz, Zatanna.'_ What, and Lady Fishnets thought a complete memory repo was the way to do that? I think she and I need to have a few words."

"I'm sure she was just trying to be nice, Lois," Clark explained wearily. "Besides, I don't think anything seriously bad happened. Apparently, in my drunken state I managed to stop Fortune's attempted heist on an armoured truck carrying the money from his own casino."

"Always the hero, huh? I guess that explains why you showed up there. But how come you were affected by all this?"

"I'm vulnerable to magic just like anybody else. If I hadn't drank the champagne, none of this would have happened. Drunk and hungover is not a place I'd like to re-visit any time soon."

"Don't you dare start blaming yourself, Smallville. If you're gonna point the finger at anyone, Little Miss Rabbit-In-A-Hat should be the first name on the list. Thanks to you, Fortune's scam was a bust and those guys are gonna be spinning the roulette wheel in jail. Just as well Lady Luck was on our side because that could've been us."

"I stopped the heist by nabbing the truck while we were all drunk. I found it stashed right here in the barn earlier today. They never reported it to the cops. When they were interrogating Emil, they showed him the security footage from when it happened. He was there and that's how they got to him."

"OK, I _know_ I'm not harbouring a kleptomaniac," Lois reassured him. "But that doesn't explain why we have a giant LuthorCorp sign in our living room."

Clark ran a hand through his hair, the answer to that poser still refusing to come to him. "Like the rest of us, I'm still putting the pieces of the puzzle together."

"I wonder what Mrs K...uh, Martha...your mom...," Lois began, the idea of how she ought to address Clark's mother now that she was effectively part of the family suddenly hitting her. She scrunched her nose and shook her head to get back on point. "What would she say if she saw all this?"

"Believe it or not, this isn't the first time a party's got out of control at the Kent farm."

Lois perched herself atop the side of the couch, partly to ease the room-spin but mostly because Clark's cryptic reply had her intrigued. "Really?"

"Yeah. Back when I was a freshman, my parents were out of town so my friend Pete and I decided to host a party. It was meant to be nothing big, just a few friends. Anyway, he put the word out and the whole town turned up. I didn't know who most of them were, and the house got completely trashed," he explained as he gestured towards the mess.

"What did you do?"

"The only thing I could do. I thought I'd take on clean-up detail before my parents got back so they would never find out. I got the house looking almost as good as new in about 10 seconds. Then I saw them both standing right there by the stairs. They'd got home earlier that morning because they'd called the house a few times that night only to hear a different person answering the phone each time. I'd spent most of the night at the hospital so missed their return. They looked about ready to ground me for life."

"Ouch! It's hard to imagine the young Clark Kent in trouble with his folks. You were always such a Goody Two Shoes."

Clark shot her a look before going on to describe the second instance of a party getting out of control.

"And then there was the time when the three witches from Macbeth decided to show up for Chloe's 18th."

"Yeah," Lois drawled, the memory of waking up confused in the Kawatche caves all too vivid. "I still don't know everything that happened. You and Chloe need to fill me in sometime. I always figured you guys might know more than you were letting on. Seems like Chloe is part of the Kent non-verbals club."

"That was the first time I realised that magic could be used on me too."

Lois voiced her bemusement and disappointment of having been denied a memento for future forays into nostalgia. "Of all the magic spells she could cast, she chose the one that meant we can't remember a night that's supposed to be memorable."

Clark tried to put a positive spin on things. "Tess is at Watchtower scanning police reports to see if anything tallies with what we might have gotten up to last night. She thinks it might help jog her memory if she can find something documented."

"If we got involved in criminal activity, I hope she used her super-hacking skills to burn the evidence."

Then she was struck by a thought, standing up so fast she gave herself a head rush. She damped it down and continued.

"Emil! He'd brought his camera, right? Maybe Doctor Do-Good really might have the answers after all. We just need to find his camera."

Clark perked up at the suggestion. "The limo is still right where we left it. I can head over there right now and see if the camera is still there. And maybe check at the Planet too."

"Why the Planet?"

"Tess was with Emil at the club before those fake cops showed up and took him away. Since we all got split up into pairs, I have a feeling they would have gone to the Planet at some point."

"Tess always did like to keep a beady eye on everything that goes down over there. But wait. How come _you_ get to swan off and save the day? If you think I'm cleaning all your mess up, you've got another thing coming, mister. That ain't how things are gonna work around here!"

Clark chuckled. "Don't worry Lois, I'll have this cleaned up in no time. Although...if you'd like to lend a helping hand, maybe you can put on that French maid's outfit you keep in your closet," he teased.

Despite herself, Lois couldn't help the grin forming on her face and the rose tinting her cheeks. She could picture his face, with smouldering eyes that drank her in from head to toe while mentally undressing her from the thin black fabric with his x-ray vision. The very thought sent a tingle up and down her spine, causing more heat to flush her face. "In your dreams, farmboy!"

"Maybe one day they might become a reality."

"One day. Maybe. But not today," she retorted, regaining her sense of authority. "As General, I'm giving you orders to bring this place back to looking habitable."

"Since when did _you_ become General?" Clark grinned, happy to play along.

"Since today," asserted Lois. "I promoted myself. I want this quaint old farmhouse looking so ship-shape the Queen of England herself would be happy to come and visit. And _then_ you can go off and find Emil's missing camera. Now get to work, there's no time to lose. That's an order, chop chop!"

_From sailor to General_. Clark stood to attention and saluted. "Sir yes sir!"

Satisfied that the operation was a-go, Lois made her way to the stairs. "Now, I need a shower and a change of clothes to get rid of the evidence of waking up with holey hobo heels, no cell phone and a Green-around-the-gills Arrow on a railroad track in the most run-down part of town. Don't ask," she quickly added before Clark could question what she meant. Then she disappeared upstairs.

Clark cast his eyes about the living room, mulling over where to start. Maybe by taking out the stuff that didn't belong here, like the LuthorCorp sign. Or maybe by getting rid of the champagne bottles, tell-tale evidence of a night that had lurched from disaster to disaster. Or maybe by righting all the askew photos on the wall that his house-proud mom would no doubt be aghast at seeing. Or maybe the piano. Or maybe the couch. Or maybe the logs by the fireplace currently laid out like a mini pyre on the hearth. Or maybe the House of El symbol scorched into the wall.

Before he could begin to lift a finger, he heard a gasp, a crash and a muffled expletive from upstairs. And then he heard her call out.

"SMALLVILLE!"

Clark dashed upstairs to the bedroom. Upon opening the door, Lois was standing on the bed in just her underwear, dress clutched in one hand and a raised shoe in the other, looking both startled and confused. His eyes followed down to the focus of her attention and it suddenly dawned on him that he'd simply forgotten about his morning wake-up call in his haste to track down Lois and the others to find out what had happened. There, among a mess of crunched up potato chips, still decked out with a plastic bandolier, was the stowaway he and Chloe had shut in the closet earlier, looking back up at them with big bright eyes. It was wearing a white veil.

"What the hell is that?!"

Clark had no way of explaining why they had a lemur for company. A lemur that was now holding up an empty bag of potato chips, screeching away as if demanding some more.

"Crazy night, huh?" he shrugged.

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**FIN.**


End file.
